Herders far removed from one another and from the administration centres are facing multiple human- and livestock-related problems during the harsh winter thus far.

Herders are migrating with hundreds of animals, sometimes hundreds of kilometres away from home, looking for better pastures. But there are no grounds for such hopes. “The drought of last summer and early snow from October and November has covered all the territory with icy layers,” explained Colonel Ch. Batchuluun of the State Emergency Commission. The first snowfalls occurred in the mountainous areas and moved to the southern Gobi regions later on.

Ten head of cattle belonging to B. Erdenejav’s family died during the night of January 11-12 on their way to better pastureland, and three calves were unable to walk, lying in the deep snow the next night. “We’ll come back again in the morning to see if they can go on. If not, we’ll leave them here,” told Erdenejav’s young boys who are driving about a hundred cattle to Jalaa, Tsenkher-Mandal soum, Khentii aimag. The family moved from Tov aimag to Kherlen-Bayan-Ulaan in Khentii aimag, the reserve pastureland which was once home to 410,000 animals, at a distance of 100 kilometres. But the migration was unsuccessful because the land was dry during the summer and prairie fires burned up what little grass remained.

The family was not alone in scouring the land. Approximately 100,000 animals and 40 families – some from Uvs and Gobi-Altai, a thousand kilometres away – came to Kherlen-Bayan-Ulaan this winter, according to aimag authorities.

Now Erdenejav’s family is migrating again, some 30 kilometres to Jalaa to save the livestock from starvation. But both humans and animals are exhausted. Legs of the cattle were bleeding, and the boys’ faces were frozen as they trudged along on unyielding, ice-covered steppes.

Herders were unable to prepare enough hay and fodder reserves last autumn because of summer droughts. To save their animals, families share their own food supplies with livestock, make strong tea, or prepare energy-rich foods with horse fat and liver for the feeble animals.

Hunger is not the sole reason for animal death. Temperatures sinking to as low as –50 Celsius at night, and below –30 Celsius during the day, are killing area livestock in pasture or shelter. “Sheep or goats get on top of weaker ones in order to feel warm, and the weak ones perish,” told Ts. Munkh-Ochir while preparing for his third migration in Tsenkhermandal soum. “The unusual drops in temperature, down to –50 degrees, are raising the death toll and are become a trouble spot of this year’s zud,” said Colonel Batchuluun. Further down the road in our jeeps, the Colonel spoke to me about the climatic changes of recent years – hot summers of +30 Celsius, cold winters of –40 to –50 Celsius. “It might be because of global changes. Moscow has had temperatures of above zero, while it was –60 Celsius in Siberia during the early January temperature drop.”

The situation was the same at Delgerkhaan soum, Khentii aimag, when our jeeps finally arrived after a seven-hour drive over a 60-kilometre distance – getting stuck dozens of times in the snow. The Tserendorj family herds 2,000 animals, half of which belong to the Mongolian Army. “Twenty have died so far – all to exposure,” Mr. L. Tserendorj said. The family does not intend to move, though. “Pasture is the same everywhere, so it’s better to stay and risk it,” he continued. The hay from a Japanese aide package was distributed in part to them, which will sustain the animals for a while.

The scenes of livestock death out on the steppe were increasing along the way. The lowest loss of animal life for a family was ten, the highest sixty. The winter is only starting.

Colonel Ts. Baast, the commander of the military unit located in Delgerkhaan soum, where Mongolian Army livestock are bred, says that antelopes and finches have frozen to death on the steppe, noting that wild populations are also severely affected by the zud.

Severe temperatures will last until the end of January, and more snowfall is expected in February, according to the Environmental Meteorology Institute. The disastrous situation is expected to last until May.

Snowstorms coupled with driving winds are killing people and animals. Herders suffer frostbite while tending or searching for animals. “I was walking non-stop,” explained I. Renchindorj, a 56-year-old man who is now missing both his arms. He left his home at seven o’clock in the evening to go for his livestock when a storm started up. “A few hours later, I realised that I was lost.” He did not stop walking, and found a family the next day at nine o’clock in the morning. Because of distance and transportation problems, he could only get medical care at five in the evening in Sumber soum, Govsumber aimag, after it was too late to save his arms.

Soon, herders will be facing food shortages. Currently, families are living on meat rations prepared last October, and merchants cannot reach them because of road conditions. “Very little flour is left from what was supplied by the Red Cross, and we can’t reach the soum centre to get the next shipment because of transportation and snow difficulties,” said Ms. S. Khandjav, an elderly lady living in Tsagaandelger soum, Dundgobi aimag. Her family lost most of their animals in last year’s zud, and now has only 50 remaining. But losses have started again.

”In late March and early April, weak people and weak animals are still facing a lack of food and grasslands,” Heinrich Gloor said, stressing that cold temperatures were consuming too much energy.

”I hope that herders are drawing the conclusion that pastoral livestock breeding is the cause of such losses in disastrous conditions,” Colonel Batchuluun stated. He proposes a wintertime system that allows animals to be fed rather than dependent on grazing.

January 21

WE LIKE MOVIES: Good movies, this weekend: The Hudsucker Proxy, Liar, Liar, Big Trouble in Little China, The African Queen, and, best of all, the classic Bringing Up Baby, starring the incomparable Cary Grant (my all-time favourite Hollywood actor) and Katherine Hepburn. Those ‘sophisticated’ comedies from the thirties haven’t aged a bit, as far as I’m concerned; they’re just as bright and witty and relevant as they ever were. Unfortunately, these odd morsels of cinematic quiche make me pine all the more for the gastronomic delicacies found in my collection of classic videos rotting away in Canada like so many cow carcasses on the Battleship Potemkin…